Blackmore Vale Magazine ‘Somerset Philosopher ‘takes on Darwin’!

Blackmore Vale Magazine. (October 18th 2013)

Somerset Philosopher takes on Darwin with ‘Involution’ book

Philippa Rees is challenging Charles Darwin’s evolution theory with her book ‘Involution’.

This over-eaten apple

SOMERSET philosopher and poet Philippa Rees is taking on Darwin in a book that had its origins in a theory she began to shape 40 years ago.

Her book – Involution: Reconciling Science to God – develops a theory that she first presented in the 1970s.

She has reworked her theory, which rejects the idea that the selfish gene has driven evolutionary change alone.

Her Involution points to un-Darwinian sympathy and self sacrifice and suggests that the capacity for contemplative thought is the real driver of evolution.

Philippa Rees, who lives at Redlynch near Bruton, has written the work as an odyssey in the form of an epic poem narrated by two companions, Reason and Soul.

Reason, representing scientific thought, and Soul, representing creative genius, probe science’s theories to present a new way of understanding evolution in the form of Involution.

The work is presented in nine cantos, charting the history of science from pre-human existence until today.

Mrs Rees first presented her theory as a scientific monologue to the Cambridge University Epiphany Philosophers. It was approved by leading scientists including Nobel Prize winner Konrad Lorenz and Arthur Koestler.

Her reading ten years ago convinced her that science had come round to her theory and decided to use poetry to communicate her theory of Involution to show mankind’s journey inwards.

She said: “Every aspect of my life has shaped this book.”

She added: “I wanted to reveal that the influence of consciousness on the processes of life penetrates into the synchronicities of the most ordinary events.

“Creation is through the quality of thought, and our indifference to it is responsible for the horrors of the contemporary materialist world.”

Involution: Reconciing Science to God is published by CollaborArt Books at £17.99.